Stewart is best known for his 1976 hit single "Year of the Cat", the title song from the platinum album of the same name. Though Year of the Cat and its 1978 platinum follow-up Time Passages brought Stewart his biggest worldwide commercial successes, earlier albums such as Past, Present and Future from 1973 are often seen as better examples of his intimate brand of historical folk-rock – a style to which he has returned in recent albums.[4]

Stewart has released sixteen studio and three live albums since his debut album Bedsitter Images in 1967, and continues to tour extensively in the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK. His latest release is Uncorked, released on Stewart's independent label, Wallaby Trails Recordings.[6]

Although born in Glasgow,[7] Al Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne, Dorset, England, after moving from Scotland with his mother, Joan Underwood. His father, Alastair MacKichan Stewart, who served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve, died in a plane crash during a 1945 training exercise before Stewart was born.[8] He attended Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire as a boarder. After that, as he sings in the song "Post World War II Blues" (from Past, Present and Future): "I came up to London when I was 19 with a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams."

Stewart's first record was the single "The Elf" (backed with a version of The Yardbirds' "Turn into Earth"), which was released in 1966 on Decca Records and included guitar work from Jimmy Page (later of the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin), the first of many leading guitarists Stewart worked with, including Richard Thompson, Tim Renwick, and Peter White. Stewart then signed to Columbia Records (CBS in the UK), for whom he released six albums. Though the first four of these attracted relatively little commercial interest, Stewart's popularity and cult following grew steadily through albums that contain some of Stewart's most incisive and introspective songwriting.

Stewart's debut album Bedsitter Images was released on LP in 1967 (though technically his first recording was 'The Elf', released by Decca in 1966, which sold an estimated 496 copies). A revised version appeared in 1970 as The First Album (Bedsitter Images) with a few tracks changed, and the album was reissued on CD in 2007 with all tracks from both versions. His first recording of any kind appears on Jackson C. Frank's first album, 1965's Jackson C. Frank, playing guitar on "Yellow Walls".

Love Chronicles (1969) was notable for the 18-minute title track, an anguished autobiographical tale of sexual encounters that was the first mainstream record release ever to include the word "fucking".[9] It was voted "Folk Album of the Year" by the UK music magazine Melody Maker and features Jimmy Page and Richard Thompson on guitar.

His third album, Zero She Flies, followed in 1970 and included a number of shorter songs which ranged from acoustic ballads and instrumentals to songs that featured electric lead guitar. These first three albums (including The Elf) were later released as the two-CD set To Whom it May Concern: 1966–70.

On the back of his growing success, Stewart released Orange in 1972. It was written after a tumultuous breakup with his girlfriend and muse, Mandi, and was very much a transitional album, combining songs in Stewart's confessional style with more intimations of the historical themes that he would increasingly adopt (e.g., "The News from Spain" with its progressive rock overtones, including dramatic piano by Rick Wakeman).

The fifth release, Past, Present and Future (1973), was Stewart's first album to receive a proper release in the United States, via Janus Records. It echoed a traditional historical storytelling style and contained the song "Nostradamus," a long (9:43) track in which Stewart tied into the rediscovery of the claimed seer's writings by referring to selected possible predictions about 20th century people and events. While too long for mainstream radio airplay at that time, the song became a hit on many US college/university radio stations, which were flexible about running times.

Stewart followed Past, Present and Future with Modern Times (1975), in which the songs were lighter on historical references and more of a return to the theme of short stories set to music. Significantly, though, it was the first of his albums to be produced by Alan Parsons.

In a highly positive retrospective review of Modern Times, AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as "exquisite". Erlewine wrote that the album "establishes Stewart's classic sound of folky narratives and Lennonesque melodies, all wrapped up in a lush, layered production from Alan Parsons. The production gives epics like the title track a real sense of grandeur that makes their sentiments resonate strongly."[10]

Modern Times produced Stewart's first hit single, "Carol". The album reached No. 30 in the US and received substantial airplay on album-oriented stations some 30 years before Bob Dylan would release an album of the same name.

Stewart told Kaya Burgess of The Times: "When I finished Year of the Cat, I thought: ‘If this isn’t a hit, then I can’t make a hit.’ We finally got the formula exactly right."[5]

Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he had a title for any of the songs. He mentioned in a Canadian radio interview that he has done this for six of his albums, and he often writes four different sets of lyrics for each song.[12]

Both albums reached the top ten in the US, with "Year of the Cat" peaking at No. 5 and "Time Passages" at No. 10, and both albums produced hit singles in the US ("Year of the Cat" No. 8, and "On the Border", #42; "Time Passages" No. 7 and "Song on the Radio", #29). Meanwhile, "Year of the Cat" became Stewart's first chart single in Britain, where it peaked at No. 31. It was a huge success at London's Capital Radio, reaching number 2 on their Capital Countdown chart. The overwhelming success of these songs on the two albums, both of which still receive substantial radio airplay on classic-rock/pop format radio stations, has perhaps later overshadowed the depth and range of Stewart's body of songwriting.[13]

Stewart then released 24 Carrots (#37 US 1980) and his first live album Live/Indian Summer (#110 US 1981), with both featuring backing by Peter White's band Shot in the Dark (who released their own unsuccessful album in 1981). While "24 Carrots" did produce a No. 24 single with "Midnight Rocks", the album sold less well than its two immediate predecessors.

After those releases, Stewart was dropped by Arista and his popularity declined. Despite his lower profile and waning commercial success, he continued to tour the world, record albums, and maintain a loyal fanbase. There was a four-year gap between his next two albums, the highly political Russians and Americans (1984) and the upbeat pop-oriented Last Days of the Century (1988), which appeared on smaller labels and had lower sales than his previous works.

Stewart followed up with his second live album, the acoustic Rhymes in Rooms (1992), which featured only himself and Peter White, and Famous Last Words (1993), which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood (co-writer of "Year of the Cat"), who died the year of its release.

After parting ways with his longtime collaborator of almost twenty years, Peter White (who was credited on every studio and live album between Year of the Cat and Famous Last Words and also served as his regular songwriting partner), Stewart joined up with former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber, who was also producer, and followed up with a concept album, Between the Wars (1995), covering major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939, such as the Treaty of Versailles, Prohibition, the Spanish Civil War, and the Great Depression. Juber would end up producing and be credited on all of Stewart's subsequent studio albums.

In 1995, Stewart was invited to play at the 25th anniversary Glastonbury Festival, taking to the same stage he had graced in 1970 at the first festival.

In 2000, Stewart released Down in the Cellar, a concept album themed on wine. Stewart had begun a love affair with wine in the 1970s when, he admitted, he had more money than he knew how to spend,[14] and so turned to fine wines.

Stewart and guitarist Dave Nachmanoff released a live album, Uncorked, on Stewart's label, Wallaby Trails Recordings, in 2009.[16] They played the Glastonbury Festival 40th anniversary in June 2010 on the acoustic stage.

In 2011, Stewart sang a duet with his guitarist and opening act Dave Nachmanoff on Nachmanoff's album Step Up. The song, "Sheila Won't Be Coming Home", was co-written by Stewart and Nachmanoff.

In May 2015 Stewart performed the albums Past, Present and Future and Year of the Cat in their entirety at the Royal Albert Hall with a band that included Tim Renwick, Peter White and Stuart Elliott, who had appeared on the original recordings.

In April 2017 Stewart was given a Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, presented by Tony Blackburn, with whom he had once played in a band in Dorset.

On occasion, Stewart has set poems to music, such as "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices" (lyrics by the poet Pete Morgan) on the 1970 album Zero She Flies. During his 1999 UK tour, Stewart invited Morgan to read the lyrics as he performed this song in the Leeds City Varieties Theatre show of 7 November 1999. Stewart also invited Morgan to read the poem at the Beverly gig on the same tour, whilst Stewart took a short break, and Morgan subsequently read another poem from his works as well.

In a 23 June 2012 telephone interview with Bob Reid and Blair Packham on NewsTalk 1010 AM in Toronto, Ontario[19] (partially transcribed below), Al Stewart provided these insights into his songwriting "process":

I don't like repetition.

For example, there have been nine songs in the Top Ten, I think, called "Hold On" (Including, I think, once there were two called "Hold On" simultaneously in the Top Ten). OK, if you're really cynical, and you've written a new song, you'll probably want to call it "Hold On" because it gives you an extra edge. But at the same time it shows so little interest in originality that I can't actually listen to anything called "Hold On" at this point in my life. I mean, it just seems crazy.

So, if I have two little rules and guiding principles, they would be:

(a) Don’t use words that other people use. Very few people would put the word, oh, I don’t know, “pterodactyl” into a song. So that’s fine. No “Oh”’s. No “Baby”’s. No “I miss you so”’s. And no “you done me wrong”. No “bad”’s or “sad”’s.

[(b)] And the other thing is, write about subjects that no one else writes about. Basically 90% of all songs seem to be either "Baby, I love you so", or "Baby, you've done me wrong". Now, when people look at songs, when I play anybody on the planet this song, and I say "What is this?", they will say, "Oh, that's Reggae", or "Oh, that's Heavy Metal", or "That's Country & Western", or "Oh, that's Opera", you know what I mean? But that's not what I asked. They're answering a question I didn't ask. What they're saying is "That's the music". What I'm saying is "What is the song?" And the song is either "I've done you wrong", or, "Baby, I love you so", no matter what style it's played in. In other words, there's a huge difference between content and style, and, if you work more towards content, why not make it content that is original.

….

If it's already been written, why write it again? If it's already been said, why say it again? I mean there are some remarkable quotes that I love. But I didn't say them. And you don't want to pass them off as your own work.

Napoleon said that "Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted". And that, actually, has governed my life. You know what I mean? That's a quote you can live by. But it's not my quote. So if I say it I always credit it to Napoleon.

There is another way of saying any of the things you want to say, rather than rehashing someone else's words.

….

I think of songs as cinema, really. It's aural cinema. I want to show you a movie when I'm playing a song. That's essentially what I'm doing.

And, of course, the songs are geographical too. One of the ways I get inspired to write a song – and this will always produce a song that sounds like nothing else (I can't, I can't recommend this highly enough) – I just open a world atlas, just at random, and whatever page I'm looking at, at least six songs immediately occur to me.

….

So, if you look at pretty much any of the songs, a lot of them are geographical, historical, and from a movie.

^Nichols, Thomas M. (Spring 2001). "Soldiers and War: A Top Ten List". International Journal. Canadian International Council. 56 (2): 312–323, 317 n.1. JSTOR40203558. In a 1980 interview, Stewart lamented his reference in the song about More to Henry Plantagenet when he meant Henry Tudor. How many of his fans caught the error is unknown.

1.
Glasgow
–
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, and third largest in the United Kingdom. Historically part of Lanarkshire, it is now one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and it is situated on the River Clyde in the countrys West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as Glaswegians, Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement on the River Clyde to become the largest seaport in Britain. From the 18th century the city grew as one of Great Britains main hubs of transatlantic trade with North America. Glasgow was the Second City of the British Empire for much of the Victorian era and Edwardian period, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew in population, reaching a peak of 1,128,473 in 1939. The entire region surrounding the conurbation covers about 2.3 million people, at the 2011 census, Glasgow had a population density of 8, 790/sq mi, the highest of any Scottish city. Glasgow hosted the 2014 Commonwealth Games and is well known in the sporting world for the football rivalry of the Old Firm between Celtic and Rangers. Glasgow is also known for Glasgow patter, a dialect that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city. Glasgow is the form of the ancient Cumbric name Glas Cau. Possibly referring to the area of Molendinar Burn where Glasgow Cathedral now stands, the later Gaelic name Baile Glas Chu, town of the grey dog, is purely a folk-etymology. The present site of Glasgow has been settled since prehistoric times, it is for settlement, being the furthest downstream fording point of the River Clyde, the origins of Glasgow as an established city derive ultimately from its medieval position as Scotlands second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries as the site of this bishopric, reorganised by King David I of Scotland and John, there had been an earlier religious site established by Saint Mungo in the 6th century. The bishopric became one of the largest and wealthiest in the Kingdom of Scotland, bringing wealth, sometime between 1189 and 1195 this status was supplemented by an annual fair, which survives as the Glasgow Fair. Glasgow grew over the following centuries, the first bridge over the River Clyde at Glasgow was recorded from around 1285, giving its name to the Briggait area of the city, forming the main North-South route over the river via Glasgow Cross. The founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451 and elevation of the bishopric to become the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1492 increased the towns religious and educational status and landed wealth. Its early trade was in agriculture, brewing and fishing, with cured salmon and herring being exported to Europe, Glasgow was subsequently raised to the status of Royal Burgh in 1611. The citys Tobacco Lords created a water port at Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. By the late 18th century more than half of the British tobacco trade was concentrated on Glasgows River Clyde, at the time, Glasgow held a commercial importance as the city participated in the trade of sugar, tobacco and later cotton

2.
Wimborne Minster
–
Wimborne Minster is a market town in East Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town. The town is recognised as part of the South East Dorset conurbation. The town and its area is served by eleven councillors. The electoral ward of Wimborne Minster is slightly bigger than the parish, the population of this ward at the 2011 census is 7,014. Wimborne is twinned with Valognes, France and Ochsenfurt, Germany, Wimborne Minster is part of the Mid Dorset and North Poole parliamentary constituency. The architecture of Wimborne is regarded as one of the foremost collections of 15th-, 16th-, local planning has restricted the construction of new buildings in areas such as the Cornmarket and the High Street, resulting in the preservation of almost all of the original buildings. The town is home to the Tivoli Theatre, a 1930s art deco cinema and this is a Saxon church, with Norman and Gothic architecture. This is made of Dorset Limestone and New Forest Stone to keep it strong, the model town is one of the largest and longest established model towns in England. It depicts Wimborne at the time the model was made, in the 1950s and it is at 1,10 scale, resulting in the model of the Minster being several feet high. The model shop windows accurately show the goods which the shops were selling at the time. The exhibition also includes a railway based on Thomas the Tank Engine, which was opened by Christopher Awdry. Childrens story evenings are held at the model village, at weekends and national holidays, the town crier can be seen in the main square and around the Minster. The legacy and position of the town date back to the Civil War. The town has a civil war reenactment society, which performs every year. The town has a well-established and large market, the market is held on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was previously located in the centre but moved out several years ago to a site on the edge of town to accommodate its size. Every year Wimborne hosts the longest fireworks display in Dorset, as part of its Guy Fawkes celebrations, all proceeds are donated each year to local schools, and since 2004 over £61,000 has been raised for local school projects and equipment. Every summer in June the town holds the Wimborne Minster Folk Festival, founded in 1980, the annual event of traditional folk dance and music has become the focal point for one of the largest gathering of dance teams and musicians in the South of England

3.
Rock music
–
It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis

4.
Pop music
–
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions

5.
Folk rock
–
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the referred to a genre that arose in the United States. The genre was pioneered by the Los Angeles band the Byrds, the term folk rock was coined by the U. S. music press to describe the Byrds music in June 1965, the month in which the bands debut album was issued. A distinct, eclectic style of folk was created in Britain and Europe in the late 1960s by Pentangle, Fairport Convention. In a broader sense, folk rock includes later similarly inspired musical genres, Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the referred to a genre that arose in the United States. The style was influenced by the Beatles and other British bands. The term folk rock was coined by the U. S. music press to describe the Byrds music in June 1965, the month in which the bands debut album was issued. In a broader sense, folk rock includes later similarly inspired musical genres and movements in the English-speaking world and, to a lesser extent, as with any genre, the borders are difficult to define. Of these, the first two owed direct debts to protest folk singers such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, along with the leftist Popular Front culture of the 1930s. The Weavers mainstream popularity set the stage for the revival of the 1950s and early 1960s. By 1951, however, the group had fallen afoul of the U. S, red Scare of the McCarthy era, and as a result they disbanded in 1952. The group reformed in 1955, releasing the influential album The Weavers at Carnegie Hall in 1957, before disbanding for a time in 1964. The crystal-clear harmony singing and liberal outlook that characterized American folk rock during the mid-1960s sprang directly from the music, while this urban folk revival flourished in many cities across the U. S. Like the 1950s Beat Generation before them, the vast majority of the urban folk revivalists shared a disdain for the values of mainstream American mass culture, across the Atlantic, a parallel folk revival was occurring in the UK during the 1950s and early 1960s. However, it wasnt until 1956 and the advent of the skiffle craze that the British folk revival crossed over into the mainstream, skiffle was a blend of jazz, folk, and country blues, with roots in African-American folk music and the post-war British jazz scene. This renewed popularity of folk music forms in Britain led directly to the folk movement. Among the leading lights of the folk movement were Bert Jansch and John Renbourn

6.
Psychedelic rock
–
Many psychedelic groups differ in style, and the label is often used indiscriminately. Musically, the effects may be represented via novelty studio tricks, electronic or non-Western instrumentation, disjunctive song structures, some of the earlier 1960s psychedelic rock musicians were based in folk, jazz, and the blues, while others showcased an explicit Indian classical influence called raga rock. In the 1960s, there existed two main variants of the genre, the whimsical British pop-psychedelia, and the harder American West Coast acid rock. While acid rock is often deployed interchangeably with the psychedelic rock, it can also refer more specifically to the heavier. The genre bridged the transition from early blues- and folk-based rock to rock and hard rock. Since the late 1970s it has revived in various forms of neo-psychedelia. The term psychedelic was first coined in 1956 by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond as a descriptor for hallucinogenic drugs in the context of psychedelic psychotherapy. As the countercultural scene developed in San Francisco, the acid rock. In the popular music of the early 1960s, it was common for producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with form, arrangements, unnatural reverb. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spectors Wall of Sound production formula, there was no transition to be made. You go from things like Flying Purple People Eater to I Am the Walrus, music critic Richie Unterberger says that attempts to pin down the first psychedelic record are therefore nearly as elusive as trying to name the first rock & roll record. Some of the far-fetched claims include the instrumental Telstar and the Dave Clark Fives massively reverb-laden Any Way You Want It, the first mention of LSD on a rock record was the Gamblers 1960 surf instrumental LSD25. American folk singer Bob Dylan was an influence on mid 1960s rock music. He led directly to the creation of rock and the psychedelic rock musicians that followed. Molly Longman of mic. com writes that, in terms of bridging the relationship between music and hallucinogens, the Beatles and the Beach Boys were the eras most pivotal acts. The considerable success enjoyed by these two bands allowed them the freedom to experiment with new technology over entire albums. In Unterbergers opinion, the Byrds, emerging from the Californian folk scene, with their ominous minor key melodies, hyperactive instrumental breaks, and use of Gregorian chants. In the songs lyric, the requests, Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship

7.
Guitar
–
The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist

8.
Bass guitar
–
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass guitar is an instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker on stage, or into a larger PA system using a DI unit. Since the 1960s, the guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary widely from one style of music to another, many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, heavy metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, symphonic rock, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusion, Latin, funk, progressive rock and other rock, the adoption of a guitar form made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments. The addition of frets enabled bassists to play in more easily than on acoustic or electric upright basses. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period, around 1947, Tutmarcs son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948, however, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton and his Fender Precision Bass, which began production in October 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. This split pickup, introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups, the pole pieces and leads of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, producing a humbucking effect. Humbucking is a design that electrically cancels the effect of any AC hum, the Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, which could be easily transported, and which was less prone to feedback when amplified than acoustic bass instruments. Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, roy Johnson, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, following Fenders lead, in 1953, Gibson released the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass, the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance

9.
Piano
–
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a sound and smaller dynamic range. An acoustic piano usually has a wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings. Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard causes a padded hammer to strike the strings. The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air, when the key is released, a damper stops the strings vibration, ending the sound. Notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released by the fingers and thumbs and this means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, going from the deepest bass range to the highest treble. The black keys are for the accidentals, which are needed to play in all twelve keys, more rarely, some pianos have additional keys. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass that graduates from one to two, the strings are sounded when keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by dampers when the hands are lifted from the keyboard. There are two types of piano, the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical solos, chamber music and art song and it is used in jazz. The upright piano, which is compact, is the most popular type, as they are a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making. During the nineteenth century, music publishers produced many works in arrangements for piano, so that music lovers could play. The piano is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo and ensemble performances, accompaniment, with technological advances, amplified electric pianos, electronic pianos, and digital pianos have also been developed. The electric piano became an instrument in the 1960s and 1970s genres of jazz fusion, funk music. The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments, pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches

10.
Drum kit
–
A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones most significantly cymbals but also including the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some also include electronic instruments and both hybrid and entirely electronic kits are used. If some or all of them are replaced by electronic drums, the drum kit is usually played while seated on a drum stool or throne. The drum kit differs from instruments that can be used to produce pitched melodies or chords, even though drums are often placed musically alongside others that do, such as the piano or guitar. The drum kit is part of the rhythm section used in many types of popular and traditional music styles ranging from rock and pop to blues. Other standard instruments used in the section include the electric bass, electric guitar. Many drummers extend their kits from this pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals. Some performers, such as some rockabilly drummers, use small kits that omit elements from the basic setup, some drum kit players may have other roles in the band, such as providing backup vocals, or less commonly, lead vocals. Thus, in an early 1800s orchestra piece, if the called for bass drum, triangle and cymbals. In the 1840s, percussionists began to experiment with foot pedals as a way to them to play more than one instrument. In the 1860s, percussionists started combining multiple drums into a set, the bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, and other percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Double-drumming was developed to one person to play the bass and snare with sticks. With this approach, the drum was usually played on beats one. This resulted in a swing and dance feel. The drum set was referred to as a trap set. By the 1870s, drummers were using an overhang pedal, most drummers in the 1870s preferred to do double drumming without any pedal to play multiple drums, rather than use an overhang pedal. Companies patented their pedal systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904–05, liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played with the foot of a standing percussionist. The bass drum became the central piece around which every other percussion instrument would later revolve and it was the golden age of drum building for many famous drum companies, with Ludwig introducing

11.
Harmonica
–
There are many types of harmonica, including diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one or more holes along a mouthpiece, behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. A harmonica reed is a flat elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, when the free end is made to vibrate by the players air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are pre-tuned to individual pitches, tuning may involve changing a reeds length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds, an important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the basic parts of the harmonica are the comb, reed plates and cover plates. The comb is the body of the instrument, which. The term comb may originate from the similarity between this part of a harmonica and a hair comb, Harmonica combs were traditionally made from wood but now are also made from plastic or metal. Some modern and experimental designs are complex in the way that they direct the air. There is dispute among players about whether comb material affects the tone of a harmonica, among those saying yes are those who are convinced by their ears. Few dispute, however, that comb surface smoothness and air-tightness when mated with the reedplates can greatly affect tone, the main advantage of a particular comb material over another one is its durability. In particular, a comb can absorb moisture from the players breath. This can cause the comb to expand slightly, making the instrument uncomfortable to play, various types of wood and treatments have been devised to reduce the degree of this problem. Much effort is devoted by serious players to restoring wood combs, some players used to soak wooden-combed harmonicas in water to cause a slight expansion, which they intended to make the seal between the comb, reed plates and covers more airtight. Modern wooden-combed harmonicas are less prone to swelling and contracting, players still dip harmonicas in water for the way it affects tone and ease of bending notes. The reed plate is a grouping of several reeds in a single housing, the reeds are usually made of brass, but steel, aluminium and plastic are occasionally used. Individual reeds are usually riveted to the plate, but they may also be welded or screwed in place. Reeds fixed on the side of the reed plate respond to blowing

12.
Columbia Records
–
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership

13.
RCA Records
–
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period

14.
EMI Records
–
The label was later launched worldwide. Records Ltd. legal entity was created in 1957 as the record manufacturing and it oversaw EMIs various labels, including The Gramophone Co. Ltd. Columbia Graphophone Company, and Parlophone Co. Ltd, in July 1965, the standalone EMI Record companies were extracted from E. M. I. Records Ltd. and folded into The Gramophone Company Ltd, on 1 July 1973, The Gramophone Co. Ltd. was renamed EMI Records Ltd. Records Ltd. was wound down and its activities were absorbed into EMI Records Ltd, earlier, on 1 January 1973, all of The Gramophone Company Ltd. pop labels had been rebranded as EMI. EMI Records then signed new acts that became global successes, Kraftwerk, Renaissance, Queen, Olivia Newton-John, Iron Maiden, Kate Bush, Sheena Easton, Pink Floyd, in 1997, EMI Records American division was folded into Virgin Records. In 2010, EMI Records opened a music division, EMI Records Nashville, which includes on its roster Troy Olsen, Alan Jackson, Kelleigh Bannen. EMI Records Nashville is a label to the Capitol Nashville unit of Universal Music Group. EMI Christian Music Group was renamed Capitol Christian Music Group, EMI Classics was sold to Warner Music Group on February 2013. After EU regulatory approval, EMI Classics was absorbed into Warner Classics on July 2013, abbey Road Studios List of record labels

15.
Singer-songwriter
–
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition, singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. Singer-songwriter is used to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and often self-manager. Most records by artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself. The term has also used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk, and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams. Song topics include political protest, as in the case of the Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger, the concept of a singer-songwriter can be traced to ancient bardic oral tradition, which has existed in various forms throughout the world. Poems would be performed as chant or song, sometimes accompanied by a harp or other similar instrument, after the invention of printing, songs would be written and performed by ballad sellers. Usually these would be versions of existing tunes and lyrics, which were constantly evolving and this developed into the singer-songwriting traditions of folk culture. The term singer-songwriter in North America can be traced back to singers who developed works in the blues and folk music style. Early to mid-20th century American singer-songwriters include Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin Hopkins, Son House, the tradition of writing topical songs was established by this group of musicians. This focus on social issues has greatly influenced the singer-songwriter genre, artists who had been primarily songwriters, notably Carole King, Townes Van Zandt, and Neil Diamond, also began releasing work as performers. In contrast to the approach of most prior country and folk music. The adjectives confessional and sensitive were often used singer-songwriter style, in the rock band era, members were not technically singer-songwriters as solo acts. However, many were singer-songwriters who created songs with band members. Many others like Eric Clapton found success as singer-songwriters in their later careers, there were hints of cross-pollination, but rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with different audiences. An early attempt at fusing elements of folk and rock was highlighted in the Animals House of the Rising Sun, dylan plugged an entire generation into the milieu of the singer-songwriter. In the mid- to late 1960s, bands and singer-songwriters began to proliferate the underground New York art/music scene. Lotti Golden, in her Atlantic debut album Motor-Cycle, chronicled her life in NYCs East Village in the late 60s counterculture, visiting subjects such as gender identity, kate Bush remained distinctive throughout with her idiosyncratic style

16.
British folk revival
–
It is particularly associated with two movements, usually referred to as the first and second revivals, respectively in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and the mid-20th century. The first included increased interest in and study of traditional music, in Scotland the earliest printed collection of secular music was by publisher John Forbes in Aberdeen in 1662 as Songs and Fancies, to Thre, Foure, or Five Partes, both Apt for Voices and Viols. It was printed three times in the twenty years, and contained seventy-seven songs, of which twenty-five were of Scottish origin. Collected from memory, tradition and ancient authors and these were drawn on for the most influential collection, The Scots Musical Museum published in six volumes from 1787 to 1803 by James Johnson and Robert Burns, which also included new words by Burns. The Select Scottish Airs collected by George Thomson and published between 1799 and 1818 included contributions from Burns and Walter Scott. With the Industrial Revolution the process of social stratification was intensified, awareness that older forms of song were being abandoned prompted renewed interest in collecting folk songs during the 1830s and 40s, including the work of William B. Sandys Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, William Chappell, A Collection of National English Airs and Robert Bells Ancient Poems, Ballads, the first British revival concentrated on transcribing, and later recording, songs by remaining performers. Among the most influential of the revivals earliest figures were the Harvard professor Francis James Child, Sabine Baring-Gould, Frank Kidson, Lucy Broadwood, Kidson and Broadwood were important in the foundation of the Folk Song Society in 1898. Later, major figures in movement in England were Cecil Sharp and his assistant Maud Karpeles and the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth. Sharp produced the five volume Folk Songs from Somerset from 1904–9 and founded the English Folk Dance Society in 1911 and his lectures and other publications attempted to define a musical tradition that was rural in origin, oral in transmission and communal in nature. In Scotland collectors included the Reverend James Duncan and Gavin Greig, there was a strong nationalist element in the motivation for collecting folk song. As part of a mood of growing nationalism in the period before the First World War. One of the effects of the folk song revival was the creation of a distinctive English form of classical music. This connection between the English folk revival and the English Musical Renaissance movement has been emphasized in historical accounts of English art music throughout the 20th century. Vaughan Williams was also the editor of the English Hymnal and utilized many collected tunes, similarly other composers such as Gustav Holst and Frederick Delius wrote music that utilized sections, cadences or themes from English folk music. By the 1940s this particular tendency among composers had begun to subside, similarly, John McEwens Pibroch, Border Ballads and Solway Symphony incorporated traditional Scottish folk melodies. Folk-song collecting continued after World War I, but the nationalist impulse had subsided, in 1932 the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society merged to become the English Folk Dance and Song Society. British folk song might have become an academic interest had it not been for a second wave of revival with a very different emphasis

17.
1960s in music
–
In North America and Europe the decade was particularly revolutionary in terms of popular music, as it saw the evolution of rock. In the early-1960s, rock and roll in its purest form was gradually overtaken by pop rock, beat, psychedelic rock, blues rock, and folk rock, which had grown in popularity. The country- and folk-influenced style associated with the latter-half of 1960s rock music spawned a generation of popular singer-songwriters who wrote and performed their own work. Towards the decades end, genres such as Baroque pop, sunshine pop, bubblegum pop, from a classical point of view, the 1960s were also an important decade as they saw the development of experimental, jazz and contemporary classical music, notably minimalism and free improvisation. In Asia, various trends marked the popular music of the 1960s, in Japan, the decade saw the rise in popularity of several Western popular music groups such as The Beatles. The success of music and bands in the Japan started a new generation, known as Group Sounds. In South America, genres such as bossa nova, Nueva canción, Rock music began leaving its mark, and achieved success in the 1960s. Additionally, salsa grew popular towards the end of the decade, in the 1960s cumbia entered Chile and left a long-lasting impact on tropical music in that country. In the late 1950s, a culture of groups began to emerge, often out of the declining skiffle scene, in major urban centres in the UK like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham. This was particularly true in Liverpool, where it has estimated that there were around 350 different bands active, often playing ballrooms, concert halls. Beat bands were influenced by American bands of the era, such as Buddy Holly. Among the most successful acts from Birmingham were the Spencer Davis Group. The first non-Liverpool, non-Brian Epstein-managed band to break through in the UK were Freddie and the Dreamers, who were based in Manchester, as were Hermans Hermits. By the end of 1962, the British rock scene had started with groups like the Beatles drawing on a wide range of American influences including soul music, rhythm and blues. Initially, they reinterpreted standard American tunes, playing for dancers doing the twist and these groups eventually infused their original rock compositions with increasingly complex musical ideas and a distinctive sound. In mid-1962 the Rolling Stones started as one of a number of groups increasingly showing blues influence, along with bands like the Animals and the Yardbirds. During 1963, the Beatles and other groups, such as the Searchers. British rock broke through to mainstream popularity in the United States in January 1964 with the success of the Beatles, I Want to Hold Your Hand was the bands first No.1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, starting the British Invasion of the American music charts

18.
1970s in music
–
In North America, Europe, and Oceania, the decade saw the rise of disco, which became one of the biggest genres of the decade, especially in the mid-to-late 1970s. In Europe, a variant known as Euro disco rose in popularity towards the end of the 1970s, aside from disco, funk, smooth jazz, jazz fusion, and soul remained popular throughout the decade. It is this influx of music that soon transformed into rock. Rock music played an important part in the Western musical scene, other subgenres of rock, particularly glam rock, hard rock, progressive, art rock and heavy metal achieved various amounts of success. Other genres such as reggae were innovative throughout the decade and grew a significant following, hip hop emerged during this decade, but was slow to start and did not become significant until the late 1980s. A subgenre of classical, film scores, remained popular with movie-goers and its rising popularity, mixed with the popular music of the period, led to the creation of synthpop. Pop also had a popularity role in the 1970s, in Asia, music continued to follow varying trends. In Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, the Nueva canción movement peaked in popularity and was adopted as the music of the hippie, Liberation Theology, Cumbia music began its internationalization as regional scenes rose outside Colombia. Merengue experienced mainstream exposure across Latin America and the southern US border states, in Africa, especially Nigeria, the genre known as Afrobeat gained a following throughout the 1970s. By the second half of the decade, many acts had also achieved stardom, namely, AC/DC, Kiss, Aerosmith, Van Halen. Arena rock grew in popularity through rock acts such as Styx, by the mid-1970s, Linda Ronstadt, along with other newer artists such as Emmylou Harris and The Eagles, were enjoying mainstream success and popularity that continues to this day. The Eagles themselves emerged as one of the most successful acts of all time. Many American bands in the seventies began experimenting with synthesizers. The original American bands included Talking Heads, The Cars, in the 1980s, Britain would respond with the synthpop style, which broadened the definition of new wave. Combining elements of rock and pop music, bands such as The Romantics, The Knack. Also seeing mild success is Loverboy, the mid-1970s saw the rise of punk music from its protopunk-garage band roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Ramones, Patti Smith, and Blondie were some of the earliest American Punk rock acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Punk music has also heavily associated with a certain punk fashion and absurdist humour which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture

19.
Time Passages
–
Time Passages is the eighth studio album by Al Stewart, released in September 1978. It is the follow-up to his 1976 album Year of the Cat, the album, like 1975s Modern Times and 1976s Year of the Cat, was once again produced by Alan Parsons. The albums title track and End of the Day were both co-written by Peter White, the title track also reached #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts for 10 weeks. A digitally remastered version of the album was released in 2004, the Palace of Versailles, the former residence of the French Kings and a key site in early days of the French Revolution. The lyrics contain specific allusions to events and figures of the revolution. Life in Dark Water - references the Mary Celeste, questioning the usage of the inaccurate term Marie Celeste, west, Krysia Kristianne, Jeff Borgeson - background vocals Andrew Powell - orchestration Alan Parsons - producer The albums front and back cover were designed by Hipgnosis

20.
Folklore
–
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group

21.
Glastonbury Festival
–
Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place near Pilton, Somerset. In addition to music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret. Leading pop and rock artists have headlined, alongside thousands of others appearing on smaller stages, films and albums recorded at Glastonbury have been released, and the festival receives extensive television and newspaper coverage. The majority of staff are volunteers, helping the festival to raise millions of pounds for good causes, regarded as a major event in British culture, the festival is inspired by the ethos of the hippie, counterculture, and free festival movements. It retains vestiges of these traditions, such as the Green Fields area, after the 1970s, the festival took place almost every year and grew in size, with the number of attendees sometimes being swollen by gatecrashers. Michael Eavis hosted the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open-air Led Zeppelin concert at the 1970 Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music. They featured works by composers, sponsored by the Clark family, as well as a wide range of traditional works, from Everyman to James Shirleys Cupid. The festival retains vestiges of this such as the Green Fields area, encompassing the Green Futures. The first festival at Worthy Farm was the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival, mounted by Michael Eavis on Saturday 19 September 1970, and attended by 1,500 people. The original headline acts were The Kinks and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders but these acts were replaced at short notice by Tyrannosaurus Rex, Other billed acts of note were Quintessence, Stackridge, and Al Stewart. The 1971 festival featured the first incarnation of the Pyramid Stage, conceived by Bill Harkin the stage was a one-tenth replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza built from scaffolding and metal sheeting and positioned over a blind spring which was found by dowsing. Performers included David Bowie, Mighty Baby, Traffic, Fairport Convention, Gong, Hawkwind, Skin Alley, The Worthy Farm Windfuckers and Melanie. It was paid for by its supporters and advocates of its ideal, and embraced a mediaeval tradition of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights, the 1971 festival was filmed by Nicolas Roeg and David Puttnam and was released as a film called simply Glastonbury Fayre. The 1980s saw the festival become a fixture, barring periodic fallow years. In 1981, Michael Eavis took control of the festival, and that year a new Pyramid Stage was constructed from telegraph poles and metal sheeting, a permanent structure which doubled as a hay-barn and cow-shed during the winter. In the 1980s, the area of the festival became the starting point for a new childrens charity called Childrens World. 1981 was the first year that the festival profits. Since 1983, large festivals have required licences from local authorities and this led to certain restrictions being placed on the festival, including a crowd limit and specified times during which the stages could operate

22.
Yoko Ono
–
Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist who is also known for her work in performance art and filmmaking. She is the wife and widow of singer-songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles. Ono grew up in Tokyo, and studied at Gakushuin and she withdrew from her course after two years and rejoined her family in New York in 1953. She spent some time at Sarah Lawrence College, and then involved in New York Citys downtown artists scene. She first met Lennon in 1966 at her own art exhibition in London and she brought feminism to the forefront in her music, influencing artists as diverse as the B-52s and Meredith Monk. Ono achieved commercial and critical acclaim in 1980 with the chart-topping album Double Fantasy, public appreciation of Onos work has shifted over time, helped by a retrospective at a Whitney Museum branch in 1989 and the 1992 release of the six-disc box set Onobox. She received a Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale in 2009, as Lennons widow, Ono works to preserve his legacy. She funded Strawberry Fields in New York City, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and she has made significant philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace, Philippine and Japan disaster relief, and other causes. In 2012 Yoko Ono received the Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt Human Rights Award endowed by Alexandra Hildebrandt, the award is given annually in recognition of extraordinary, non-violent commitment to human rights. Ono continues her activism, inaugurating a biennial $50,000 LennonOno Grant for Peace in 2002. She has a daughter, Kyoko Chan Cox, from her marriage to Anthony Cox, Ono was born on February 18,1933, in Tokyo, to Isoko Ono and Eisuke Ono, a banker and former classical pianist. Isokos father was ennobled in 1915, isokos maternal grandfather Zenjiro Yasuda was an affiliate of the Yasuda clan and zaibatsu. Eisuke came from a line of samurai warrior-scholars. The kanji translation of Yokos first name Yoko means ocean child, Two weeks before Yokos birth, Eisuke was transferred to San Francisco by his employer, the Yokohama Specie Bank. The rest of the family followed soon after, with Yoko meeting Eisuke when she was two and her younger brother Keisuke was born in December 1936. Yoko was enrolled in piano lessons from the age of 4, in 1937, the family was transferred back to Japan and Ono enrolled at Tokyos Gakushuin, one of the most exclusive schools in Japan. In 1940, the moved to New York City. The next year, Eisuke was transferred from New York City to Hanoi, Ono was enrolled in Keimei Gakuen, an exclusive Christian primary school run by the Mitsui family

23.
John Lennon
–
John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful and musically influential band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a songwriting partnership. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the craze as a teenager, his first band, the Quarrymen, first became the Silver Beatles. After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he added Ono as one of his middle names, Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release, Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. By 2012, Lennons solo album sales in the United States exceeded 14 million and, as writer, co-writer, or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth and, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and in 1994 as a solo artist. Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman of Irish descent and his parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John Jack Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, after her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpools Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946 Lennons father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her, according to author Mark Lewisohn, Lennons parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, has said the scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again, Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence he lived at Mendips,251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own. His aunt purchased volumes of stories for him, and his uncle. In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature, Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society, but I cannot be what I am not. I was the one who all the other boys parents—including Pauls father—would say, the parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friends home, partly out of envy that I didnt have this so-called home

24.
Paul Simon
–
Paul Frederic Simon is an American musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Simons fame, influence, and commercial success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, formed in 1964 with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote nearly all of the songs, including three that reached No.1 on the U. S. singles charts, The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson. In 1986, he released Graceland, an inspired by South African township music. Simon also wrote and starred in the film One-Trick Pony and co-wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman with the poet Derek Walcott. On June 3,2016, Simon released his 13th solo album, titled Stranger to Stranger, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Album Chart and the UK charts. Simon has earned sixteen Grammys for his solo and collaborative work, in 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2006 was selected as one of the 100 People Who Shaped the World by Time magazine. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine named Simon as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists, in 2015, he was named as one of the 100 Greatest Songwriters by Rolling Stone. Among many other honors, Simon was the first recipient of the Library of Congresss Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007, in 1986, Simon was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees. Simon was born on October 13,1941, in Newark, New Jersey and his father, Louis, was a college professor, double bass player, and dance bandleader who performed under the name Lee Sims. His mother, Belle, was a school teacher. In 1945, his family moved to the Kew Gardens Hills section of Flushing, Queens, the musician Donald Fagen has described Simons childhood as that of a certain kind of New York Jew, almost a stereotype, really, to whom music and baseball are very important. I think it has to do with the parents, Simon, upon hearing Fagens description, said it isnt far from the truth. Simon says about his childhood, I was a ballplayer, Id go on my bike, and Id hustle kids in stickball. He adds that his father was a New York Yankees fan and he didnt play with me as much as I played with my kids. He was at work until late at night, Simons musical career began after meeting Art Garfunkel when they were both 11. They performed in a production of Alice in Wonderland for their sixth-grade graduation and their idols were the Everly Brothers, whom they imitated in their use of close two-part harmony. Simon also developed an interest in jazz, folk, and blues, especially in the music of Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly

25.
Bed-Sitter Images
–
Bed Sitter Images is the debut studio album of folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1967, and again in a revised edition with a new cover picture in 1970. The songs were orchestrated by Alexander Faris, the cover of the first 1967 edition spells Bed Sitter without a hyphen, as do many reviews and Al Stewarts official website. The album and its track are both named on the record label as Bedsitter Images, with neither hyphen nor space between Bed and sitter. A new CD reissue in 2007 contains all tracks from both versions of the album, plus bonus tracks. The album has also released in Japan as The News from Spain, with the addition of some later recordings by Stewart. com, Bedsitter Images AlStewart. com

26.
Peter White (musician)
–
Peter White is a smooth jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. He also plays the accordion and the piano and he is known for his 20-year collaboration with Al Stewart. His brother, Danny White, was one of the members who formed the UK-based band Matt Bianco. Born in Luton, England, White first gained fame with his guitar style as accompanist to Al Stewart. During a 20-year tenure with Stewart, he co-wrote many songs, in the late 1980s, White accompanied Basia on a series of acclaimed albums. In 1996, Basia was featured on Whites album Caravan of Dreams, White began recording his own albums in 1990. His songs — Midnight in Manhattan, recorded by Grover Washington, Jr. White performed regularly on many Windows albums, appearing as a more or less permanent guest. In 2001 and 2002, he worked on Creed Brattons on Brattons first three solo albums, White produced, mixed and also played guitar on many of the tracks. Peter White won the award for best Smooth Jazz Musician in the 2007 Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards and he was named the Best Guitarist at the National Smooth Jazz Awards for four consecutive years from 2000-2003. In 2000, White won three Oasis Contemporary Jazz Awards, CD of the Year for Perfect Moment Song of the Year for Midnight in Manhattan with Grover Washington, Jr

27.
Alan Parsons
–
Alan Parsons is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Parsons own group, the Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also successful commercially. In October 1967, at the age of 19, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios and he was known for doing more than what would normally be considered the scope of a recording engineers duties. He considered himself to be a director, likening his contribution to recordings to what Stanley Kubrick contributed to film. It is also heard in Parsons influence on the Hollies He Aint Heavy, Hes My Brother and The Air That I Breathe, sharp departures from their popular 1960s hits Stay, Just One Look, Stop. Parsons was also known to have swapped shifts during the engineering of Dark Side of the Moon so he could work entirely on the project and their hits included January and Magic. He also mixed the album by the American band Ambrosia. Parsons was nominated for a Grammy Award for both of these albums, the Project consisted of a revolving group of studio musicians and vocalists, most notably the members of Pilot and the members of Ambrosia. Unlike most rock groups, the Alan Parsons Project never performed live during its heyday and its only live performance during its original incarnation was in 1990, with Woolfson present but behind the scenes. After releasing ten albums, the last in 1987, the Project terminated in 1990 after Parsons and Woolfson split, Parsons continued to release work in his own name and in collaboration with other musicians. Parsons and his band now regularly tour many parts of the world, although an accomplished vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, guitarist and flautist, Parsons only sang infrequent and incidental parts on his albums. While his keyboard playing was very audible on the Alan Parsons Project albums, during the late 1990s, Parsons career travelled an interesting full circle. Having started out in the industry at the Abbey Road Studios in London as an assistant engineer in the late 1960s. He reportedly managed to combine this role with the demands of a performing and recording schedule. Parsons also continued with his production work for other bands. Of all his collaborators, guitarist Ian Bairnson worked with Parsons the longest, including Parsons post-Woolfson albums, Try Anything Once, On Air, in 1998, Parsons became Vice-President of EMI Studios Group including the Abbey Road Studios. He soon left the post, deciding to return to more creative endeavours, Parsons remained as a creative consultant and associate producer for the group. As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from many nations, Parsons has received ten Grammy Award nominations for engineering, in 2007 he received a nomination for Best Surround Sound Album for A Valid Path

28.
Jimmy Page
–
James Patrick Jimmy Page, OBE is an English musician, songwriter, and record producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page began his career as a session musician in London and, by the mid-1960s. He was a member of the Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, in late 1968, he founded Led Zeppelin. Page is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time, Rolling Stone magazine has described Page as the pontiff of power riffing and ranked him number 3 in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2010, he was ranked number two in Gibsons list of Top 50 Guitarists of All Time and, in 2007, number four on Classic Rocks 100 Wildest Guitar Heroes. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once as a member of the Yardbirds, Page has been described by Uncut as rocks greatest and most mysterious guitar hero. Los Angeles Times magazine voted Jimmy Page the 2nd greatest guitarist of all time, Page was born to James Patrick Page and Patricia Elizabeth Gaffikin in the west London suburb of Heston on 9 January 1944. His father was a personnel manager and his mother, who was of Irish descent, was a doctors secretary. In 1952, they moved to Feltham and then to Miles Road, Epsom in Surrey, I dont know whether was left behind by the people before, or whether it was a friend of the familys—nobody seemed to know why it was there. First playing the instrument at age 12, he took a few lessons in nearby Kingston, there was one other guitarist in my school who actually showed me the first chords that I learned and I went on from there. I was bored so I taught myself the guitar from listening to records, so obviously it was a very personal thing. Among Pages early influences were rockabilly guitarists Scotty Moore and James Burton, presleys song Baby Lets Play House is cited by Page as being his inspiration to take up the guitar. Although he appeared on BBC1 in 1957 with a Höfner President, Page states that his first guitar was a second-hand 1959 Futurama Grazioso, later replaced by a Fender Telecaster. Pages musical tastes included skiffle and acoustic folk playing, and the sounds of Elmore James, B. B. King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Freddie King. Basically, that was the start, a mixture between rock and blues, at 13, Page appeared on Huw Wheldons All Your Own talent quest programme in a skiffle quartet, one performance of which aired on BBC1 in 1957. The group played Mama Dont Want to Skiffle Anymore and another American-flavoured song, when asked by Wheldon what he wanted to do after schooling, Page said, I want to do biological research to find a cure for cancer, if it isnt discovered by then. In an interview with Guitar Player magazine, Page stated that there was a lot of busking in the early days, Page took a guitar to school each day only to have it confiscated and returned to him after class. Although interviewed for a job as an assistant, he ultimately chose to leave Danetree Secondary School, West Ewell

29.
Richard Thompson (musician)
–
Richard John Thompson, OBE is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He made his début as a recording artist as a member of Fairport Convention in September 1967 and he continues to write and record new material regularly and frequently performs live at venues throughout the world. Thompson was awarded the Orville H. Gibson Award for best acoustic guitar player in 1991, similarly, his songwriting has earned him an Ivor Novello Award and, in 2006, a lifetime achievement award from BBC Radio. Artists who have recorded Thompsons compositions include such talents as Del McCoury. David Byrne, and The Blind Boys of Alabama, Thompson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music. On 5 July 2011, he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Aberdeen. Richard John Thompson was born in Ladbroke Crescent, Notting Hill, West London and his father, a Scot, was by profession a Scotland Yard detective, and an amateur guitar player, several other family members had played music professionally. While attending William Ellis School in Highgate, he formed his first band Emil and his father had seen Django Reinhardt play in Glasgow in the 1930s and played guitar himself. He was later described by his son as a bad amateur player, with three chords, though, unfortunately, not C, F and G. All these musical genres were to colour Thompsons playing in the years to come, Joe Boyd said, He can imitate almost any style, and often does, but is instantly identifiable. In his playing you can hear the evocation of the Scottish pipers drone, by the age of 18 Thompson was playing with the newly formed Fairport Convention. Thompsons guitar playing caught the ear of American producer Joe Boyd, largely on the strength of Thompsons playing Boyd took them under his wing and signed them to his Witchseason production and management company. Boyd said, And there was group of very nice Muswell Hill grammar school boys. Leonard Cohen songs, and Richard Fariña songs, and Bob Dylan songs, and then came the guitar solo, and Richard just played the most amazing solo. He played a solo which quotes from Django, from Charlie Christian, you know, and that really amazed me, the breadth of his sophistication. And so, you know, at the end of the gig I was in the room saying would you guys like to make a record. Shortly thereafter Thompson, already acquiring a reputation as a guitar player. This seems to have out of necessity as Fairport Convention was essentially a cover band at first

30.
Rick Wakeman
–
Richard Christopher Rick Wakeman is an English keyboardist, songwriter, television and radio presenter, and author. He is best known for being in the rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004 and for his solo albums released in the 1970s. Born and raised in West London, Wakeman intended to be a concert pianist and his early sessions included playing on Space Oddity, among others, for David Bowie and songs by Juniors Eyes, T. Rex, Elton John, and Cat Stevens. He formed his band, The English Rock Ensemble, in 1974. He hosted the television show Gastank, and produced the first of many New-age, in 1988, he co-formed Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe which led to his third Yes stint until 1992. He returned twice more between 1995 and 2004, during which he completed several solo projects and tours, including venturing into Christian music. Wakeman continues to perform concerts worldwide in various capacities, Wakemans discography includes over 90 solo albums that range from several musical styles. Wakeman has written three books, an autobiography and two memoirs, Wakeman will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Yes in 2017. Wakeman was born on 18 May 1949 in the west London suburb of Perivale, the only child of Cyril Frank Wakeman and Mildred Helen Wakeman, the three lived in Wood End Gardens in nearby Northolt. Cyril played the piano in a band while he was in the army and worked at a building suppliers. Mildred worked at a removal firm, in 1954, Wakeman began at Wood End Infants School in Greenford followed by Drayton Manor Park Grammar School in Hanwell, in 1959. The family spent their holidays in Exmouth. When Wakeman turned seven, his father paid for weekly piano lessons with Dorothy Symes which lasted for eleven years, in 1960, Symes entered Wakeman in his first music competition and he went on to win many awards, certificates, and cups in contests held around London. Wakeman then took up the clarinet at age twelve and in his years, attended church and learned the church organ, became a Sunday school teacher. Wakeman described himself at school as a horror, I worked hard in the first year, then eased up. In 1963, at fourteen, Wakeman joined the Atlantic Blues, two years later, Wakeman passed his O Levels in English, maths, art and music, and went on to study music, art, and British constitution at A-level. In 1966, he joined the Concordes, later known as the Concorde Quartet, playing dance and pop songs at events with his cousin Alan on saxophone. Wakeman used the money earned from their gigs to buy a Pianet, the band were unpaid after Wakeman lost control of his car and drove across the headmasters rose garden at the front of the school, thereby forfeiting their performance fee to pay for the damage

31.
Tori Amos
–
Tori Amos is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and composer. She is a trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. She was expelled at age eleven for what Rolling Stone described as musical insubordination, Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations, eight Grammy nominations, Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen and the Rev. Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D. C. When she was two, her moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Amos didnt need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she herself to play. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, as long as Ive been doing this, which is more than thirty-five years, Ive never seen the same light creature in my life. For instance, the sound of the words with the sound of the chord progression combined with the rhythm manifests itself in an expression of the architecture of color-and-light. I started visiting this world when I was three, listening to a piece by Béla Bartók, I visited a configuration that day that wasnt on this earth, at five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974, in 1974, when she was 11, her scholarship was discontinued and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, in 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At 13, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called More Than Just a Friend. As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote Baltimore with her brother Mike Amos for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song won the contest and became her first single, released as a 7 single pressed locally for family and friends during 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, Walking With You. Before this, she had performed under her name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friends boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine

32.
Tim Renwick
–
Timothy John Pearson Tim Renwick is an English guitarist. He is best known for his association with Al Stewart in his career and for his long-standing role as lead guitarist for The Sutherland Brothers. He also performed with Pink Floyd on their 1987 and 1994 tours, Renwick was born and grew up in Cambridge. He passed his 11 plus and consequently attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, as had future Floyd members Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, after dabbling in other instruments, he started to play guitar when he was 14, and progressed to playing in local bands in 1963. Throughout that decade performed with Little Women, Wages of Sin, Juniors Eyes, The Hype, Quiver and he also worked for the Alan Parsons rhythm section at Abbey Road Studios with Pete Moss for the Sutherland Brothers and Al Stewart. He did session work for Elton John, Procol Harum, Andy Gibb, in 1984, Renwick toured with Roger Waters during his The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking tour. Among the other musicians in Waters band was Eric Clapton, with whom Tim toured the following year, on Claptons Behind The Sun Tour. In 1987, David Gilmour invited Renwick to tour with Pink Floyd as a session musician, and recordings from the August 1988 shows were released in the double live album Delicate Sound of Thunder. This makes Renwick, along with Michael Kamen, Patrick Leonard and Jon Carin, Renwick joined the Tex Maniax with Andy Roberts and other ex Wangfords and Mike + The Mechanics. Renwick joined Pink Floyd again later on their 1989 European tour, on the 1994 studio album, The Division Bell, and on the Division Bell tour, Renwick made a live appearance with the Alan Parsons Band in the 1998 Michael Jackson Gala. He recorded with Pink Floyd colleague Rick Wright, playing guitar on his 1996 album Broken China, in 2005 he appeared once more with Pink Floyd as second guitarist for their Live 8 reunion. He also played with Al Stewart at Cambridge Corn Exchange on 7 October 2013, Renwick has recorded an eponymous album, Tim Renwick, released in 1980, and in 2007 compiled an instrumental album titled Privateer, published by Audio Network Plc. and available from his website. He now lives in Pentewan, Cornwall, and plays guitar in The Bucket Boys, Tim Renwick Privateer Electric Blue Vintage Blues Guitar Official Website Tim Renwick site at My Space Tim Renwick bio with details of all band line-ups etc

33.
Paul McCartney and Wings
–
Wings were noted for frequent personnel changes as well as commercial success, going through three lead guitarists and four drummers. Created following the McCartneys 1971 album Ram, the bands first two albums, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, were viewed as artistic disappointments beside Paul McCartneys work with the Beatles. After the release of the track of the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, McCullough. The McCartneys and Laine then released 1973s Band on the Run, following that album, the band recruited guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton, only for Britton to quit shortly afterwards and be replaced by Joe English. With the new line-up, Wings released Venus and Mars, which included the US number one single Listen to What the Man Said, and undertook a highly successful world tour over 1975–76. Intended as more of an effort, Wings at the Speed of Sound was issued midway through the tour and featured the hit singles Silly Love Songs. In 1977, the band earned their only UK number one single, with Mull of Kintyre, Wings experienced another line-up shuffle, however, with both McCulloch and English departing before the release of the groups 1978 album London Town. The McCartneys and Laine again added new members, recruiting guitarist Laurence Juber and drummer Steve Holley, the resulting album, Back to the Egg, was a relative flop, with its singles under-performing and the critical reception negative. During the supporting tour, Paul McCartney was arrested in Japan for cannabis possession, despite a final US number one, the live version of McCartneys solo single Coming Up, Wings broke up permanently in 1981. After the Beatles break-up in 1970, McCartney recorded two albums, McCartney, credited to himself, and Ram, with wife Linda, Ram was recorded in New York City, where McCartney auditioned a number of drummers and guitarists, selecting Seiwell and guitarist David Spinozza. When Spinozza became unavailable due to other commitments, Hugh McCracken was enlisted to take his place. After the release of Ram, McCartney decided to form a new group and asked Seiwell, Seiwell accepted, but McCracken declined, so McCartney invited Denny Laine, whom he had known since the early 1960s, to join. He said, Nothing, so I said, Right, Laine then dropped plans for his album there and then. In August 1971, Seiwell and Laine joined Paul and Linda McCartney to record Pauls third post-Beatles album for Apple Records, the result was Wild Life, released 7 December. It was the first project to credit Wings as the artist, the band name is said to have come to McCartney as he was praying in the hospital while Linda was giving birth to their second child together, Stella, on 13 September 1971. Paul McCartney recalled in the film Wingspan that the birth of Stella was a bit of a drama, there were complications at the birth and he was praying fervently and the image of wings came to his mind. He decided to name his new band Wings, in an attempt to capture the spontaneity of live performances, five of Wild Lifes eight songs were first takes by the band. The album included a cover of Mickey & Sylvias Love Is Strange, like Ram, Wild Life left music critics cold, a response that typified the anti-McCartney sentiments that prevailed among the music press following the Beatles break-up

34.
Laurence Juber
–
Laurence Juber is an English-born musician. Often considered most famous for playing guitar in Wings from 1978 to 1980, he has since had a distinguished career as a solo fingerstyle guitarist. He is married to Hope Juber and they have two daughters, Nico Juber and songwriter Ilsey Juber, born in Stepney, East London, Juber was raised and went to school in North London. By his own account, he began playing guitar the week that I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles was released, beginning on a cheap acoustic guitar, he learned to read music early, figuring out the system of music notation for himself. He began to earn money playing the guitar at 13, enraptured by the sounds on records of the mid- to late 1960s, he set his sights on becoming a session guitarist in Londons music studios. While playing with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, he earned his degree at London Universitys Goldsmiths College. Upon graduation, he began work as a session guitarist. Sung entirely in French, the album, Je Nai Pas Vu LeTemps Passer, perhaps most famously, Juber played the James Bond theme for the movie The Spy Who Loved Me. He gave up a lucrative and successful career when invited to join Paul McCartneys band Wings in 1978. Juber later said that he agreed to join immediately because you dont turn down that kind of job and he played on the bands Back to the Egg album, as well as their subsequent UK tour. In 1980, he garnered his first Grammy Award, when Wings track Rockestra Theme won the award for Best Rock Instrumental and he was miscredited as Lawrence Tuber on the sleeve for Ringo Starrs album, Stop And Smell The Roses. From this period dates his first solo album Standard Time, mcCartney and former Wings guitarist Denny Laine played on the track Maisie. After Wings disbanded in early 1981, Juber moved to the United States, in New York City he met his future wife, Hope, and soon moved to her native California. He subsequently resumed work as a musician and played guitar for numerous television shows, including Happy Days, Family Ties, Home Improvement. He composed the music for A Very Brady Christmas, World Gone Wild and he played guitar on Belinda Carlisles Mad About You, Eric Carmens Make Me Lose Control and Time of My Life and Shes Like The Wind from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. In 1990, he released his solo album, Solo Flight. During the next decade he would begin to explore altered tunings, in 2000, Juber released the solo album LJ plays the Beatles and The Collection and in 2003 the album Guitarist was released to critical acclaim. Jubers credentials as an fingerstyle guitarist continue to grow

35.
Royal Air Force
–
The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdoms aerial warfare force. Formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. The RAF describe its mission statement as, an agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission. The mission statement is supported by the RAFs definition of air power, Air power is defined as the ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events. Today the Royal Air Force maintains a fleet of various types of aircraft. The majority of the RAFs rotary-wing aircraft form part of the tri-service Joint Helicopter Command in support of ground forces, most of the RAFs aircraft and personnel are based in the UK, with many others serving on operations or at long-established overseas bases. It was founded on 1 April 1918, with headquarters located in the former Hotel Cecil, during the First World War, by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps, at that time it was the largest air force in the world. The RAFs naval aviation branch, the Fleet Air Arm, was founded in 1924, the RAF developed the doctrine of strategic bombing which led to the construction of long-range bombers and became its main bombing strategy in the Second World War. The RAF underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the Second World War, under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed Article XV squadrons for service with RAF formations. Many individual personnel from countries, and exiles from occupied Europe. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in RAF formations, additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine percent of all RAF personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres. In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the RAF defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe, the largest RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany by Bomber Command. Following victory in the Second World War, the RAF underwent significant re-organisation, during the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken by the Royal Air Force was in 1948 and the Berlin Airlift, codenamed Operation Plainfire. Before Britain developed its own nuclear weapons the RAF was provided with American nuclear weapons under Project E and these were initially armed with nuclear gravity bombs, later being equipped with the Blue Steel missile. Following the development of the Royal Navys Polaris submarines, the nuclear deterrent passed to the navys submarines on 30 June 1969. With the introduction of Polaris, the RAFs strategic nuclear role was reduced to a tactical one and this tactical role was continued by the V bombers into the 1980s and until 1998 by Tornado GR1s. For much of the Cold War the primary role of the RAF was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, with many squadrons based in West Germany. With the decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, despite this, the RAF fought in many battles in the Cold War period

36.
The Police
–
The Police were an English new wave band formed in London in 1977. For most of their history the band consisted of Sting, Andy Summers and they are also considered one of the leaders of the Second British Invasion of the United States. They disbanded in 1986, but reunited in early 2007 for a world tour that ended in August 2008. Their 1978 debut album, Outlandos dAmour, reached No.6 in the UK and their second album Reggatta de Blanc became the first of five consecutive UK No.1 albums with its lead single, Message in a Bottle, their first UK number one. Their next two albums, Zenyatta Mondatta and Ghost in the Machine, saw further critical and commercial success and their final studio album, Synchronicity, was No.1 in both the UK and the US, selling over 8 million copies in the US alone. Every Breath You Take became their fifth UK number one single, the Police have sold over 75 million records, making them one of the worlds best-selling artists of all time. They were the worlds highest-earning musicians in 2008, thanks to their reunion tour, four of their five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The Police were included among both Rolling Stones and VH1s lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, on 12 January 1977, Sting relocated to London and the very same day of his arrival, he sought out Copeland for a jam session. Curved Air had recently split up and Copeland, inspired by the then-current punk rock movement, was eager to form a new band and join the burgeoning London punk scene. While less keen, Sting acknowledged the commercial opportunities, so the duo formed the Police as a power trio with Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani recruited as the third member. After their debut concert on 1 March 1977 at Alexanders in Newport, Wales and their first single Fall Out, recorded at Pathway Studios in Islington, North London on 12 February 1977 with a budget of £150, was released in May 1977 by Illegal Records. Also in May 1977, former Gong musician Mike Howlett invited Sting to join him in the band project Strontium 90, the drummer Howlett had in mind, Chris Cutler, was unavailable to play, so Sting brought Copeland. The bands fourth member was guitarist Andy Summers from Lancashire in northwest England, a decade older than Sting and Copeland, Summers was a music industry veteran who had played with Eric Burdon and the Animals and Kevin Ayers among others. Strontium 90 performed at a Gong reunion concert in Paris on 28 May 1977, the band also recorded several demo tracks, these were released 20 years later in 1997 on the archive album Strontium 90, Police Academy. Summers musicality impressed Sting, who was becoming frustrated with Padovanis rudimentary abilities, shortly after the Strontium 90 gig, Sting approached Summers to join the band. He agreed, on the condition the band remain a trio, shortly after these two gigs, Summers delivered an ultimatum and Padovani was dismissed from the band. The Polices power trio line-up of Copeland, Sting, and Summers performed for the first time on 18 August 1977 at Rebeccas club in the English city of Birmingham in the West Midlands. A trio was unusual for the time, and this line-up endured for the rest of the bands history, few punk bands were three-pieces, while contemporary bands pursuing progressive rock, symphonic rock and other sound trends usually expanded their line-ups with support players

37.
Andy Summers
–
Andrew James Somers, known professionally as Andy Summers, is an English guitarist who was a member of the rock band The Police. Summers has recorded albums, collaborated with other musicians, composed film scores. Andrew James Summers was born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, during Summers childhood, his family moved to Bournemouth in Dorset, England. After several years of lessons, he took up the guitar at the age of thirteen. By age sixteen he was playing in clubs and by nineteen he had moved to London with his friend Zoot Money to form Zoot Moneys Big Roll Band. He is one of the two love interests in Jenny Fabian and Johnny Byrnes 1969 book Groupie, in which he is given the pseudonym Davey. After the demise of Dantalions Chariot, Summers joined The Soft Machine for three months and toured the United States. For a brief time in 1968, he was a member of The Animals, then known as Eric Burdon, the album features a recording of Traffics Coloured Rain, which includes a guitar solo by Summers which runs a full 4 minutes and 15 seconds. The LP also included a version of Dantalions Chariots sole single Madman Running Through the Fields. After five years in Los Angeles, mostly spent at California State University, Northridge, in London, Summers recorded and toured with acts including Kevin Coyne, Jon Lord, Joan Armatrading, David Essex, Neil Sedaka and Kevin Ayers. In 1975 he participated in a rendition of Mike Oldfields seminal Tubular Bells. In 1977, Summers was invited by ex-Gong bassist Mike Howlett to join his band Strontium 90, Summers achieved international fame as the guitarist for The Police, which he joined in 1977, eventually replacing original guitarist Henry Padovani. During his time with the band, Summers twice won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, first in 1979 with Reggatta de Blanc, and again in 1980 with his instrumental Behind My Camel. Although Sting was the singer of the band, Summers occasionally contributed lead vocals, as in Be My Girl/Sally, Friends, Mother. Other notable Summers compositions from this period are Omegaman, Shambelle, in early 1984, after seven years together and record sales around eighty million, the Police disbanded. Though not given songwriting credit, Summers wrote the riff for Every Breath You Take. It was recorded in one take with his 1961 Fender Stratocaster during the Synchronicity sessions, the song was number one for eight weeks. Sting won the 1983 Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Summers provides an account of the session in his book, One Train Later

38.
Soho
–
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and is part of the West End of London, England. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification and it is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. Soho is a small, multicultural area of central London, a home to industry, commerce, culture and entertainment, record shops cluster in the area around Berwick Street, with shops such as Phonica, Sister Ray and Reckless Records. On many weekends, Soho is busy enough to warrant closing off some of the streets to vehicles, Westminster City Council pedestrianised parts of Soho in the mid-1990s, but later removed much of the pedestrianisation, apparently after complaints of loss of trade from local businesses. The name Soho first appears in the 17th century, Most authorities believe that the name derives from a former hunting cry. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, used soho as a call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. The Soho name has been imitated by other entertainment and restaurant districts such as Soho, Hong Kong, Soho, Málaga, SOHO, Beijing, SoHo, London, Ontario, Canada, and Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires. SoHo, Manhattan, gets its name from its location SOuth of HOuston Street, however, apart from Oxford Street, all of these roads are 19th-century metropolitan improvements, so they are not Sohos original boundaries. Soho has never been a unit, with formally defined boundaries. The area to the west is known as Mayfair, to the north Fitzrovia, to the east St Giles and Covent Garden, and to the south St Jamess. According to the Soho Society, Chinatown, the area between Leicester Square to the south and Shaftesbury Avenue to the north, is part of Soho, Soho is part of the West End electoral ward which elects three councillors to Westminster City Council. In 1536, the land was taken by Henry VIII as a park for the Palace of Whitehall. In the 1660s, ownership of Soho Fields passed to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans and he was granted permission to develop property and quickly passed the lease and development to bricklayer Richard Frith. Soho was part of the ancient parish of St Martin in the Fields, as the population started to grow a new church was provided and in 1687 a new parish of St Anne was established for it. The parish stretched from Oxford Street in the north, to Leicester Square in the south and it therefore included all of contemporary eastern Soho, including the Chinatown area. The western portion of modern Soho, around Carnaby Street was part of the parish of St James, building progressed rapidly in the late 17th century, with large properties including Monmouth House, Leicester House, Fauconberg House, Carlisle House and Newport House. Soho Square was first laid out in the 1680s on the former Soho Fields, firth built the first houses around the square, and by 1691,41 had been completed. It was originally called King Square in honour of Charles II, several upper-class families moved into the area

39.
Greek Street
–
Greek Street is a street in Soho, London, leading south from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue. The street is famous for its restaurants and cosmopolitan nature and it is thought to take its name from a Greek church that was built in 1677 in adjacent Crown Street, now part of the west side of Charing Cross Road. The church is depicted in William Hogarths Noon from Four Times of the Day, although the street has several houses from the 18th century and earlier, it is mainly 19th-century in appearance. No.1 Greek Street is the House of St Barnabas, in 1811 it became the offices of the Westminster Commissioner for Works for Sewers. This is where Chief Engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette started to work on the construction of the London sewerage system, by 1862 the house had been taken over by The House of Charity, which was established in 1846 to provide temporary accommodation for homeless people. Charles Dickens used the house and gardens as a model for the London lodgings of Dr Manette, there has been a public house known as Pillars of Hercules at no.7 since 1733. The current pub building sports some artwork by Invader and was favoured by many figures in the London literary scene, including Martin Amis, Ian Hamilton, Julian Barnes. Indeed Clive James named his book of literary criticism after it. In the mid-eighteenth century no.9 was the location of the Turks Head Tavern, the Ancient Grand Lodge of England was organized there on 17 July 1751. The Coach and Horses pub, famous for the rudeness of its former landlord Norman Balon, is at no,29, at the corner with Romilly Street. The fortnightly editorial lunch of Private Eye is held in the Coach, there has been a public house of that name on the site since the 1720s. No.47 is known for having provided temporary lodgings for famed Venetian adventurer, the noted Victorian sheet music lithographer Alfred Concanen was living at No.66 with his wife and children in 1861. 49, on the west side of Greek Street, was the home of the folk music club Les Cousins. No.58 was a lodging for Thomas De Quincey in 1802. In the southern part of the street, no.28 is the site of Maison Bertaux, owned by sisters Michele and Tania Wade, it is known as the headquarters of the artist Martin Firrell. The upstairs tea room shows work by comedian and artist Noel Fielding and members of Icelandic band Sigur Rós and it is also the home of the Maison Bertaux Theatre Club, which performs within the tiny confines of the shop. The street forms the setting for the 1930 film Greek Street, directed by Sinclair Hill and starring Sari Maritza, in the film Villain the crime lord Vic Dakin recommends Greek Street as a venue of prostitution. Try the Manhattan Club in Greek Street, for twenty quid theyll do anything

Glasgow
–
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, and third largest in the United Kingdom. Historically part of Lanarkshire, it is now one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and it is situated on the River Clyde in the countrys West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as Glaswegians, Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement on the R

1.
Clockwise from top-left: View of Glasgow Science Centre, Duke of Wellington statue outside Gallery of Modern Art, Royal Exchange Square, cityscape view from The Lighthouse, Gilbert Scott Building of University of Glasgow, Finnieston Crane, Glasgow City Chambers

2.
The seal or signet of Jocelin, Bishop of Glasgow, founder of the burgh of Glasgow.

3.
Shipping on the Clyde, Atkinson Grimshaw, 1881.

4.
Glasgow University in the 1890s

Wimborne Minster
–
Wimborne Minster is a market town in East Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town. The town is recognised as part of the South East Dorset conurbation. The town and its area is served by eleven councillors. The electoral ward of Wimborne Minster is slightly bigger than the parish, the population of th

1.
Wimborne Minster, Wimborne, Dorset

2.
The Minster

3.
Alton Morris at Wimborne Folk Festival 2011

Rock music
–
It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usu

1.
Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2006, showing a quartet lineup for a rock band (from left to right: bassist, lead vocalist, drummer, and guitarist).

2.
Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957

3.
Chubby Checker in 2005

4.
The Beach Boys performing in 1964

Pop music
–
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition fro

1.
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that the term "pop" refers to music performed by such artists as the Rolling Stones (pictured here in a 2006 performance)

2.
According to several sources, MTV helped give rise to pop stars such as Michael Jackson and Madonna; and Jackson and Madonna helped make MTV.

Folk rock
–
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the referred to a genre that arose in the United States. The genre was pioneered by the Los Angeles band the Byrds, the term folk rock was coined by the U. S. music press to describe the Byrds music in June 1965, the month in which the

Psychedelic rock
–
Many psychedelic groups differ in style, and the label is often used indiscriminately. Musically, the effects may be represented via novelty studio tricks, electronic or non-Western instrumentation, disjunctive song structures, some of the earlier 1960s psychedelic rock musicians were based in folk, jazz, and the blues, while others showcased an ex

1.
A sitar, much used on early records of the genre.

2.
Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg in 1975

3.
Big Brother and the Holding Company, c. 1966–67: Janis Joplin is seated in the foreground.

Guitar
–
The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a typ

1.
Illustration in a Carolingian psalter from the 9th century showing an instrument of the chordophone family, most probably a lute

2.
A classical guitar with nylon strings

3.
A guitarra latina (left) and a guitarra morisca (right), Spain, 13th century

4.
Guitar collection in Museu de la Música de Barcelona

Bass guitar
–
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most co

Piano
–
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte

1.
A grand piano (left) and an upright piano (right)

2.
Grand piano by Louis Bas of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, France, 1781. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca. 1700) with ornately decorated soundboard.

3.
Early piano replica by the modern builder Paul McNulty, after Walter & Sohn, 1805

Drum kit
–
A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones most significantly cymbals but also including the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some also include electronic instruments and both hybrid and entirely electronic kits are used. If some or all of them are replaced by electronic drums, the drum kit is usually played while seated on a drum sto

2.
South-African jazz drummer Louis Moholo playing a four-piece kit

3.
Dance band drummer Stan Farmer at Mark Foy's Empress Ballroom, Sydney, New South Wales, using a kit with bass drum pedal and low sock. Tom Lennon, 23 October 1935

4.
Drummer in a Memphis "juke joint" orchestra playing a kit with four non-tunable toms. Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939

Harmonica
–
There are many types of harmonica, including diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one or more holes along a mouthpiece, behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. A harmonica reed is a flat elongated spring typically made of brass,

1.
A 16-hole chromatic (top) and 10-hole diatonic harmonica

2.
Comb and two reedplates

3.
Reed plate

4.
Mark Wenner cups his hands around a "bullet mic" as he plays amplified harmonica.

Columbia Records
–
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Reco

1.
Original home of Columbia in Washington, D.C., in 1889

3.
A Columbia type AT cylinder graphophone, first released in 1898

4.
This article is about the American record label active worldwide except in Japan. For the Columbia label which was a unit of EMI, see Columbia Graphophone Company. For the Columbia label in Japan, see Nippon Columbia.

RCA Records
–
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the init

1.
Label of an RCA Victor 78 RPM record from the 1950s; RCA manufactured 78s alongside the 45 until 1958.

2.
Label of an RCA Victor 45 RPM record from the 1950s; RCA used this label for its 45 RPM records from 1954 to at least 1964.

3.
RCA used this label for its American 45 RPM records during the Dynagroove era.

4.
RCA's LP label during the Dynagroove era was also used for 45 RPM records of the mid-to-late 1960s in countries such as Argentina, where this single was pressed.

EMI Records
–
The label was later launched worldwide. Records Ltd. legal entity was created in 1957 as the record manufacturing and it oversaw EMIs various labels, including The Gramophone Co. Ltd. Columbia Graphophone Company, and Parlophone Co. Ltd, in July 1965, the standalone EMI Record companies were extracted from E. M. I. Records Ltd. and folded into The

1.
EMI Records

Singer-songwriter
–
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition, singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. Singer-songwriter is used to define popular music a

1.
Woody Guthrie

2.
Bob Dylan

3.
Hank Williams

4.
Paul Simon in concert

British folk revival
–
It is particularly associated with two movements, usually referred to as the first and second revivals, respectively in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and the mid-20th century. The first included increased interest in and study of traditional music, in Scotland the earliest printed collection of secular music was by publisher John Forbes in

1.
Francis James Child

2.
Title page of the 1st edition of The Dancing Master (1651)

3.
Percy Grainger.

4.
Martin Carthy performing with The Imagined Village at Camp Bestival – 20th July 2008

1960s in music
–
In North America and Europe the decade was particularly revolutionary in terms of popular music, as it saw the evolution of rock. In the early-1960s, rock and roll in its purest form was gradually overtaken by pop rock, beat, psychedelic rock, blues rock, and folk rock, which had grown in popularity. The country- and folk-influenced style associate

1.
The arrival of the Beatles in the U.S., and subsequent appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, marked the start of the British Invasion in which a large number of rock and roll, beat and pop performers from Britain gained massive popularity in the U.S.

2.
The Monkees, another popular band dominating the 60s.

3.
The Rolling Stones in 1965

4.
The British band Cream in 1966

1970s in music
–
In North America, Europe, and Oceania, the decade saw the rise of disco, which became one of the biggest genres of the decade, especially in the mid-to-late 1970s. In Europe, a variant known as Euro disco rose in popularity towards the end of the 1970s, aside from disco, funk, smooth jazz, jazz fusion, and soul remained popular throughout the decad

Time Passages
–
Time Passages is the eighth studio album by Al Stewart, released in September 1978. It is the follow-up to his 1976 album Year of the Cat, the album, like 1975s Modern Times and 1976s Year of the Cat, was once again produced by Alan Parsons. The albums title track and End of the Day were both co-written by Peter White, the title track also reached

1.
Time Passages

Folklore
–
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also

1.
Horse and Sulky weathervane, Smithsonian American Art Museum

2.
Hansel and Gretel, Arthur Rackham, 1909

3.
The story of Jahangir and Anarkali is popular folklore in the former territories of the Mughal Empire.

Glastonbury Festival
–
Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place near Pilton, Somerset. In addition to music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret. Leading pop and rock artists have headlined, alongside thousands of others appearing on smaller stages, films and albums recorded at Glastonbury have be

2.
Michael Eavis

3.
The giant LOVE sign inspired by The Beatles

4.
Circus area, 2004

Yoko Ono
–
Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist who is also known for her work in performance art and filmmaking. She is the wife and widow of singer-songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles. Ono grew up in Tokyo, and studied at Gakushuin and she withdrew from her course after two years and rejoined her family in New Y

1.
Yoko Ono at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, Brazil in 2007

John Lennon
–
John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful and musically influential band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a songwriting partnership. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the craze as a teenager, his firs

1.
John Lennon, 1969

2.
251 Menlove Avenue, where Lennon lived for most of his childhood

3.
Lennon (right) performing with the Beatles in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania

4.
Lennon (right) performing " All You Need Is Love " with The Beatles in 1967 to 400 million viewers of Our World.

Paul Simon
–
Paul Frederic Simon is an American musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Simons fame, influence, and commercial success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, formed in 1964 with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote nearly all of the songs, including three that reached No.1 on the U. S. singles charts, The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinso

4.
Simon paying tribute to musicians Leonard Cohen and Chuck Berry, the recipients of the first annual PEN Awards for songwriting excellence, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on February 26, 2012

Bed-Sitter Images
–
Bed Sitter Images is the debut studio album of folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1967, and again in a revised edition with a new cover picture in 1970. The songs were orchestrated by Alexander Faris, the cover of the first 1967 edition spells Bed Sitter without a hyphen, as do many reviews and Al Stewarts official website. The album and its track

1.
CD reissue cover (Collectors' Choice Music)

Peter White (musician)
–
Peter White is a smooth jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. He also plays the accordion and the piano and he is known for his 20-year collaboration with Al Stewart. His brother, Danny White, was one of the members who formed the UK-based band Matt Bianco. Born in Luton, England, White first gained fame with his guitar style as accompanist to Al Stewart

1.
Peter White in San Diego, 2009 performance

Alan Parsons
–
Alan Parsons is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Parsons own group, the Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also successful commercially. In October 1967, at the age of 19, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios and he was known for doing more than w

1.
Alan Parsons in 2006

Jimmy Page
–
James Patrick Jimmy Page, OBE is an English musician, songwriter, and record producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page began his career as a session musician in London and, by the mid-1960s. He was a member of the Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, in late 1968, he founded Led Zeppelin. P

1.
Jimmy Page at the Echo music awards 2013

2.
Jimmy Page onstage in 1973

3.
Page in 1983

4.
Page at an A.R.M.S. concert in 1983

Richard Thompson (musician)
–
Richard John Thompson, OBE is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He made his début as a recording artist as a member of Fairport Convention in September 1967 and he continues to write and record new material regularly and frequently performs live at venues throughout the world. Thompson was awarded the Orville H. Gibson Award for best ac

Rick Wakeman
–
Richard Christopher Rick Wakeman is an English keyboardist, songwriter, television and radio presenter, and author. He is best known for being in the rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004 and for his solo albums released in the 1970s. Born and raised in West London, Wakeman intended to be a concert pianist and his early sessions i

1.
Rick Wakeman in 2012.

2.
After one year of study at the Royal College of Music, Wakeman left the school to work as a session musician.

3.
Wakeman first break as a session musician came in 1969 when he played " Space Oddity " by David Bowie.

4.
Wakeman performing at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of the Performing Right Society for Music Members' Benevolent Fund in 2009.

Tori Amos
–
Tori Amos is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and composer. She is a trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. She was expelled at age eleven for what Rolling Stone described as musical insubordination, Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in t

1.
Tori Amos in 2007

2.
Amos performing on her Dew Drop Inn tour in 1996

3.
Amos in concert in June 2005

4.
Amos in 1993 Alexandra Palace, London

Tim Renwick
–
Timothy John Pearson Tim Renwick is an English guitarist. He is best known for his association with Al Stewart in his career and for his long-standing role as lead guitarist for The Sutherland Brothers. He also performed with Pink Floyd on their 1987 and 1994 tours, Renwick was born and grew up in Cambridge. He passed his 11 plus and consequently a

Paul McCartney and Wings
–
Wings were noted for frequent personnel changes as well as commercial success, going through three lead guitarists and four drummers. Created following the McCartneys 1971 album Ram, the bands first two albums, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, were viewed as artistic disappointments beside Paul McCartneys work with the Beatles. After the release of

Laurence Juber
–
Laurence Juber is an English-born musician. Often considered most famous for playing guitar in Wings from 1978 to 1980, he has since had a distinguished career as a solo fingerstyle guitarist. He is married to Hope Juber and they have two daughters, Nico Juber and songwriter Ilsey Juber, born in Stepney, East London, Juber was raised and went to sc

Royal Air Force
–
The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdoms aerial warfare force. Formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. The RAF describe its mission statement as, an agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for p

1.
A later version of the Spitfires which played a major part in the Battle of Britain.

2.
Royal Air Force emblem

3.
The Avro Lancaster heavy bomber was extensively used during the strategic bombing of Germany.

4.
The Handley Page Victor bomber was a strategic bomber of the RAF's V bomber force used to carry both conventional and nuclear bombs.

The Police
–
The Police were an English new wave band formed in London in 1977. For most of their history the band consisted of Sting, Andy Summers and they are also considered one of the leaders of the Second British Invasion of the United States. They disbanded in 1986, but reunited in early 2007 for a world tour that ended in August 2008. Their 1978 debut al

Andy Summers
–
Andrew James Somers, known professionally as Andy Summers, is an English guitarist who was a member of the rock band The Police. Summers has recorded albums, collaborated with other musicians, composed film scores. Andrew James Summers was born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, during Summers childhood, his family moved to Bournemouth in Dorset, Eng

1.
Andy Summers in 2015

2.
Summers in 1989

Soho
–
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and is part of the West End of London, England. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification and it is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues. Soho is a small, multicultural area of central

Greek Street
–
Greek Street is a street in Soho, London, leading south from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue. The street is famous for its restaurants and cosmopolitan nature and it is thought to take its name from a Greek church that was built in 1677 in adjacent Crown Street, now part of the west side of Charing Cross Road. The church is depicted in William Ho

1.
Hogarth's 'Noon' from Four Times of the Day, showing the church in the background

2.
Prior to the revolution of 1917, Stalin played an active role in fighting the Russian government. Here he is shown on a 1911 information card from the files of the Russian police in Saint Petersburg.

3.
A group of participants in the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, 1919. In the middle are Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Mikhail Kalinin.

2.
The Drunkard's Progress: A lithograph by Nathaniel Currier supporting the temperance movement, January 1846.

3.
This 1902 illustration from the Hawaiian Gazette shows the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union 's campaign against beer brewers. The "water cure" was a torture which was in the news because of its use in the Philippines.

1.
Clockwise from the top: The aftermath of shelling during the Battle of the Somme, Mark V tanks cross the Hindenburg Line, HMS Irresistible sinks after hitting a mine in the Dardanelles, a British Vickers machine gun crew wears gas masks during the Battle of the Somme, Albatros D.III fighters of Jagdstaffel 11

2.
Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the Austrian annexation in 1908.

3.
This picture is usually associated with the arrest of Gavrilo Princip, although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander.